Antiphon
by Morithil
Summary: As Helen watches him go, Hector muses over his response to the questions that have and may yet be asked of him as he walks out to face Achilles. The answer of a doomed hero.


**DISCLAIMER**: Homer wrote the Iliad. Fair play to him. - Morithil.

**ANTIPHON**

_"All Greece hates_

_the still eyes in the white face_

_the lustre as if olives_

_where she stands,_

_and the white hands._

_All Greece reviles_

_the wan face when she smiles,_

_hating it deeper still_

_when it grows wan and white,_

_remembering past enchantments_

_and past ills._

_Greece sees, unmoved,_

_God's daughter, born of love,_

_the beauty of cool feet_

_and slenderest knees,_

_could love indeed the maid,_

_only if she were laid,_

_white ash amid funereal cypresses."_

_H. D., Helen._

Above the silence that has descended on the walls, a baby wails and a man cries out a single name, over and over, prayer-like.

Have the gods deserted us that we must place our trust in the futile and not in reason? Did Sparta win the approval of those on Olympus, to charge, war and wrath onto our shores? Has Aries blessed their sandaled feet with the blood of rams?

Inside a cocoon of armour, a body throbs and is stilled. Men die in such shells, reverse butterflies that escape their shelters and spill their life's blood as skin and flesh is lifted free. Will this be my funeral garb, this gathering of metal and leather ties, will I be laid out as a tribute to the gods, like a virgin sacrificial maiden, robes of white and coins over my closed eyes-for what may I stop my life's breath?

I remember the sun burnishing a golden figure, beheaded and strange in the dust. The voice of a man rings out with the anger of a god, calling, calling.

Could I forsake him now, could I defend her now, even as the gates reveal a body, possessing of a name mightier than any that has crossed our shores before. Hate is a dry and bitter thing, like the remnants of branches thrown into the sand, washed up on salty beaches.

The baby refuses to be silenced, wracking sobs and pleas for an end, and end to carnage, an end to this futile war, the meaning and purpose of which escapes me as I try to summon it. Honour, love, duty, revenge. Small words for things that can take life.

Men can meet on the field of battle ready for the release of blood, and talk calmly to one another, sending their own troops back to their camps. I have spoken with him, famed of Ithaca, in such a way, postponing more killing because of the loss of one young life. Men and boys die together.

If I return, will they ask me, did I know for what I fought, did I see the people of this land and fight for them, did I see her approach softly from behind, white and veiled in the hot sun, a silent messenger of her own tidings, her apology? Did I see in those pallid eyes, the fair skin, the reasons for which I strode forth, did not the daughter of beauty move me thus and thus? If these are the questions I face, my answers will hush rebuke.

If they ask me when I looked into her face, cast warm and luminous, yet cool and quiet, if I felt the twinge inside me, if I stopped to look in awe upon this once-queen, this now-princess, if I desired her like the legions of men in dark ships desired her body and desired her blood spilt in payment of betrayal, I will have but one answer:

High above me on the baked walls, a woman sat holding a babe in her arms. With her my life is bound, for her I had walked out from the safety of stone, for her I willed myself to return thus. To her I gave means to flee should I have proven beaten.

And what of she who stood, barely trembling, to watch me leave. I would say that she was distanced from me, as an olive tree is a speck to a soaring bird, known and recognised, but let alone in favour of the clouds. Her name does not instil in me any spite, nor does his frightened face provoke disgust. Like to two children who have opened the cage of a wolf mightier than they know, I can only reproach with the wisdom of retrospect.

If my son knows me not, tell him that his father did what Troy demanded of him, and if I return to watch him grow, tell him nothing of my deeds.

And if death has a face like his, burning slits, golden and proud, I will wander the shores of the Styx, waiting until the ferryman approaches, haunted by the sun that blazed out from his eyes, paying for the passage with the coins he has bought for me.


End file.
